More than a hundred Rohingya and Chin refugees from Myanmar, including children and women, launched a hunger strike in Assam’s Matia Transit Camp on Monday, a senior state home department official told Scroll.

The refugees, who have cards issued by the United Nations’ refugee agency, have been demanding that they be handed over to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, transferred to a detention centre in Delhi and have sought eventual resettlement in a third country, persons aware of the development told Scroll.

The camp, located in Assam’s Goalpara district, is the largest detention centre in India.

“Our IG [Inspector General] prisons and home secretary are on the way to the camp to ascertain the facts,” Ravi Kota, the Assam chief secretary, told Scroll.

Scroll contacted Assam’s inspector general of prisons and the home secretary, under whom the transit camp functions, for a comment. The story will be updated if they respond.

About 35 Myanmar citizens who have been detained in the Matia transit camp had submitted a representation to the district administration seeking their “resettlement to any third world country or shifting them to any refugee camp within” India.

The district administration on July 16 forwarded the refugees’ letter to the Assam home department. Scroll has seen the letter.

A person, who is in contact with the refugees at the detention centre, told Scroll that several of the individuals had completed their sentences and are requesting authorities in India to hand them over to the United Nations agency, which granted them refugee status.

“People here are totally depressed,” another person familiar with the development said. “They are peacefully doing a hunger strike. They are not afraid to die.”

“We know that India is not a signatory country [to the 1951 Refugee Convention], but the Centre allows UNHCR to operate and UNHCR provides cards… their only demand is that the state department take immediate action to hand them over to the UNHCR,” said the person.

In India, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is not accredited to the Union government and operates as a mission under the umbrella of the UN’s Resident Coordinator.

The 1951 convention is a multilateral treaty that defines who a refugee is, and details the responsibilities of signatory nations that grant asylum to the persons and the rights of individuals who are granted asylum.

The person also said that the quality of the food being served to the inmates was substandard and the centre had poor hygienic conditions, as highlighted in the Assam State Legal Services Authority’s report submitted to the Supreme Court on August 14.

The report, detailing the status of facilities made available to the declared foreigners in the Matia camp, was submitted following the court’s order.

“We find that the facilities made available at the detention centre/transit camp are very poor,” said the report, seen by Scroll. “There is no adequate water supply. There is no sanitation system. There are no proper toilets”.

In July, the Supreme Court said that the living conditions in the detention centres are “deplorable” and described it a “sorry state of affairs”.

The facility became operational in January 2023 and held 211 inmates as of August 6. Most of the detainees, 89 Rohingya and 32 Chin, are refugees from Myanmar who had fled persecution.

Nearly all of them were convicted by courts for violating visa provisions under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, the 1946 Foreigners Act and the 1950 Passport Entry into India Rules.

On Monday, the Supreme Court sought a response from the Union home ministry and the Assam government about how the 211 declared foreign nationals detained in the Matia camp will be deported, Live Law reported.

Earlier, about 200 refugees from Myanmar, who are in detention centres in Manipur had held a hunger strike demanding that they be transferred out of Imphal.

Sabber Kyaw Min, the founder and director of the Rohingya Human Rights Initiative, said that several detainees had been arrested despite them having refugee cards.

“These detention centres don’t follow the UN Nelson Mandela Rules, which set the minimum standards for the treatment of prisoners,” Min said. “We Rohingya came to India because we were forced out of our homes. Now, we are worried about our safety here too.”

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